Reese Witherspoon “Didn’t Have Control” Filming ‘Fear’ Sex Scene With Mark Wahlberg at 19 Years Old: “I Said No”

Reese Witherspoon revealed she did not have “a particularly great experience” filming the 1996 sexual thriller Fear when she was 19 years old.

In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, the actress said the sex scene she filmed with Mark Wahlberg for the movie was not originally part of the script, but alleged that director James Foley asked if she would shoot it.

The scene showed Witherspoon having an orgasm while Wahlberg’s character, a young man named David who turns out to have a dark side, pleasures her on a rollercoaster.

“I didn’t have control over it,” she said. “It wasn’t explicit in the script that that’s what was going to happen, so that was something that I think the director thought of on his own and then asked me on set if I would do it, and I said no. It wasn’t a particularly great experience.”

Witherspoon also requested that they use a stunt double for the below-the-waist shots.

“I’m certainly not traumatized or anything by it, but it was formative,” she said. “It made me understand where my place was in the pecking order of filmmaking.”

The actress said this was one of the moments that made her want to become a better leader who would “go to the mat for people” and focus more on “stories from the female perspective,” which her production company Hello Sunshine specializes in.

“I think it’s another one of those stories that made me want to be an agent for change and someone who maybe can be in a better leadership position to tell stories from a female perspective instead of from the male gaze,” she said.

Witherspoon went on to say that having her daughter Ava at 22 also helped her realize “something had to shift” with her career after she found herself becoming “very competitive and jealous of other women” in the industry.

“I got Election and I created Tracy Flick, and I ended up being in Pleasantville, which was amazing. Ava was asking me the other day about where I come up with these characters, like Tracy Flick, Elle Woods, and [Melanie Smooter from] Sweet Home Alabama. I created them all within the span of five, six years in my 20s. …Sometimes I look back and go, ‘How the hell did I do that?’”

That was also the same period she landed her career-defining role as Elle Woods in Legally Blonde.

Decider has reached out to reps for Foley for comment, but did not hear back by time of publication.

Now, Witherspoon can be seen in The Morning Show Season 3, which premieres on Apple TV+ on September 13.